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What to expect in NFL investigation of Miami Dolphins’ Richie Incognito, Jonathan Martin

The NFL’s independent investigation, headed by attorney Ted Wells, will be released shortly. Dolphins owner Stephen Ross said last week that it would be released “after the Super Bowl.” Wells’ office said today that the report will be completed and released either late next week or the week after.

Unless there’s a bombshell that was never made public, we have a decent idea of what went on between Dolphins offensive linemen Jonathan Martin and Richie Incognito.

Here are a few predictions of what the report might find:

– Coach Joe Philbin will come out unscathed. Owner Stephen Ross has stood by Philbin from the beginning. Ross was asked at a news conference last week whether he A). Knew what was in the report and B). Was confident Philbin will come out looking good because Ross has so strongly stood by him. Ross said he has an idea what’s in the report but hasn’t actually seen it. Martin said in an NBC interview last week that while he mentioned to coaches that he was having issues, he never brought up teammates or spoke directly to Philbin.
– Players might need a better way to report issues. In theory Martin should have been able to go to his position coaches if he was having problems. But if those problems actually did involve other teammates, it’s awkward to have to “snitch on” other players. The Dolphins have a director of player engagement, Kaleb Thornhill, who is supposed to be a go-to person when players have family or personal issues. But does Thornhill, 29, have enough juice within organization? Should a player with issues have someone higher on the food chain in the organization (but not a coach) for situations like this?

Even if you don’t believe Incognito or other teammates did anything out of the ordinary to Martin, Martin wrote in a text message to Incognito that he checked into a mental hospital after leaving the team on Oct. 28. So it appears Martin was having some mental issues. We don’t know what these issues were, but should there be a different process in place for when issues like these arise?

– Professionalism in the workplace might be a major theme both in the Wells report and with the NFL moving forward. Incognito and Martin regularly texted about sex and drugs, and that might not be unusual in a NFL locker room. But the fallout from all of this could be a new emphasis on treating the locker room like a professional workplace and treating your teammates as fellow employees/colleagues.

The NFL is no doubt embarrassed by this entire situation. Should it be OK for players to hang out at strip clubs with each other on their own free time? There’s probably no way to stop that. But the league might try to change the image of the locker room and the idea of what being a teammate means. Does that mean anything will actually change? Maybe not.

– A greater sensitivity toward players may or may not be addressed. There were reports that former GM Jeff Ireland told Martin’s agent (after Martin left the team) that he should have handled any disagreements with Incognito by punching him. It will be interesting to see if Wells verifies or debunks this.

There were also various reports of “toughening up” Martin with some throwing out the idea of a “code red” where players were given free reign to rag on Martin. The Palm Beach Post report — quoting a team source — said that some coaches did believe Martin was a bit soft on the field and wanted to make him tougher, but it was not a call to harass Martin or any sort code red. It was simply an idea of giving him some “tough love” and bringing him closer to his teammates.

While the idea of having teammates give Martin some tough love might not be out of the ordinary in the NFL, it will be interesting to see if the Wells report raises any questions about how coaches viewed Martin as a person. If any coach is still on the hot seat, it would be offensive line coach Jim Turner.

The Dolphins recently brought in former Texans coach John Benton as assistant offensive line coach and there’s speculation he was brought in as a successor to Turner. But so far nothing has come out that would seem to warrant firing Turner (aside from the offensive line allowing 58 sacks in 2013, but that’s a whole other issue).

Other possibilities:

– It’s no secret that many NFL players smoke marijuana. There’s even a current campaign by the Marijuana Policy Project to lobby the NFL to stop testing for marijuana because they believe it’s a safer alternative to alcohol. But from the batch of text messages between Incognito and Martin that were leaked to USA Today, there’s talk about drug use both during the season and in the offseason. There were also references to “Molly” (MDMA/ecstasy) and cocaine.

Will the Wells report dig deeper into issues of drug use, or will the report try to stay more focused on the direct issue of Martin leaving the team and what went wrong? Prostitution was also a big theme in the texts, mainly coming from Incognito. Will the league even attempt to address this or just let it slide as something they can’t possibly monitor or control?

– How about due process? Incognito was suspended for the remainder of the season before the Dolphins even knew the full extent of what happened between him and Martin. Perhaps the Dolphins had no choice because of the allegations being lobbied by Martin, plus the negative PR that really began hurting Incognito when it was revealed he left a voice mail to Martin that included a racial slur.

We later found out through text messages that Martin also had a potty mouth, although Martin is trying to explain his behavior by saying he was just trying to fit in with his teammates. Incognito is no saint, but if he didn’t actually harass Martin, was the suspension warranted? Maybe there should be a more clear policy involving team suspensions in a situation where all the facts are still being gathered.

– Was there a physical attack of Martin outside the team facility? Nothing has been mentioned in recent months about this. It was alleged by Martin’s attorney.

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[…] Incognito and Martin in (better?) times The NFL’s independent investigation, headed by attorney Ted Wells, is complete and the results are expected to be released as soon as Thursday. Unless there’s a bombshell that was never made public, we have a decent idea of what went on between Dolphins offensive linemen Jonathan Martin and Richie […] …read more […]